Tonight I Dance
by Tubular Fox
Summary: "James," Arthur says, "this is real, isn't it?"    And Eames smiles but says nothing, because a projection cannot tell him what he doesn't already know.


Hello! I'll apologize in advance, because this is freakishly long, but it's meant to be read as one long thing, not in chapters. So, just a heads up. But besides that, please enjoy!

Disclaimer: I don't own Inception.

* * *

'_I've never told __him I love him,'_ Arthur thought, pausing for a brief second as he reread, rememorized, and reorganized the reports he'd written on the mark. _'I've been married to Eames for six years and I've never told him I love him.'_

It was a thought totally out of the blue. There was really no reason at all for him to be thinking about that now, not when there was a job to do and a great need to focus. But the revelation stuck in his head and refused to leave him alone, no matter how many times he tried to shake it out and return his eyes to the printed words before him. And vaguely, he wondered if that was what being the victim of inception was like.

Finally, he sighed and excused himself from the room, after checking his watch. Because there was still about fifteen minutes before the mark was even going to arrive, his teammates let him go. Arthur stepped out into the hospital corridor and walked the couple of meters to an empty stairwell, pulling out his phone and flipping it open.

_September fourteenth,_ the menu screen read. _7:15 a.m._ Arthur sighed. It was very possible that Eames wasn't even up yet, depending where in the world he was. For a long moment, Arthur contemplated putting his phone away and going back to where the team was waiting; an observation deck above their mark's soon-to-be operating room.

"September fourteenth," Arthur mused aloud. Wasn't there something he was supposed to be—

He flipped his phone shut and shook his head. He didn't have time for this. He had another report to go over, and there was only ten minutes left until he should be back to prepare with the team. He turned to the door.

'_I've never told him I love him.' _

Swearing, Arthur stopped and flipped his phone open again, leaning to press his forehead against the door's glass window. He took a deep breath and wondered why he was suddenly nervous as he hit the first speed dial. It wasn't that he was afraid of telling Eames he loved him, no. That wasn't it. Arthur recognized this as before-job anxiety. He was used to this, used to an accelerated heartbeat, a spike of adrenaline.

But he wasn't used to his hands shaking slightly, or the sudden urge to tell his loved ones he cared for them.

The phone rang once. Twice.

'_This is ridiculous,'_ Arthur reprimanded himself mentally. _'I should be back in the observation deck, focusing on the job. It's not even going to be that dangerous!'_ Yes, the job. A three-level inception. Not dangerous at all. Now that it was known that inception was possible—word got out, as it always did—high-paying jobs to plant ideas were cropping up all over the place.

Three times.

'_I should hang up. I'm wasting time.'_ And besides, it wasn't like Arthur never_ said _it. He did. All the time. …After Eames was asleep. But it wasn't like Eames didn't_ know _Arthur loved him. You didn't last through six years of marriage if love wasn't mutual.

Six times.

Finally, the massage that was identical to Arthur's but for the name replaced the ringing; _"Eames. Leave a message."_ Arthur sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, wondering where all of his sudden misgivings about the job were coming from, just from hearing his husband's _recorded message_. He was now acutely glad that Eames hadn't picked up, or Arthur was sure he would be turning himself into a marked man by backing out of this simple job at the very last second.

"James, it's Arthur. Maybe it's late where you are, so sorry if your phone ringing woke you up at all. I'm going under for a five-hour job, shouldn't be any problem, and I'll call you when I'm done." Arthur paused, for just a second. "I love you."

He closed the phone and straightened, tucking the device into his jacket pocket. He pushed the door open and returned to the observation deck where he joined his teammates in watching the mark get rolled in on a gurney.

Once the man was under, the seven of them, the team and the guard, went down and into the operating room.

Chairs were pulled up around the operating table as the doctors pulled off their gear and turned to go. The client had paid well for their silence. Arthur ignored them and examined his team as he shrugged off his suit jacket and headed for his chair.

The architect, a man named Hanson, was about forty Arthur wagered. His hair was graying at the temples, and he had a few wrinkles around his eyes, but he was still young. Still ready to do the job. He was capable, Arthur knew. They had worked together pretty steadily for a few years when Arthur had first started working with Cobb. They had good respect for each other, if not friendship.

Ariadne was in Paris, designing real buildings with her boyfriend.

Next was the forger, a woman who called herself Crystal. She was maybe thirty-five, but it was always hard to place a forger's age if they didn't want you to know it. She was good enough, Arthur supposed, but he had been spoiled by working with Eames. He was biased.

Eames was…somewhere. They didn't live together, and Arthur hadn't seen him in months, though they called each other often. He could be halfway around the world for all Arthur knew.

The chemist was a retired doctor—young, Arthur noted, but that didn't really mean anything in this line of work. There was something familiar about his face, and Arthur wondered if he had encountered the man before he took this job. His name was Beecher. Doctor Beecher.

Yusuf was back in Mombassa, tending to his dreamers and testing and selling his new compounds.

Then there was the tourist. He was a low-level executive at the client's company. There was no room for tourists on this job.

Saito was managing his businesses in Japan. He and Arthur still spoke, sometimes.

Finally, the extractor was a man named Howard. A man with very little patience and the view that anything that affected his completion of the job was a personal offense to himself. He also had a strong sense of loyalty, too, though. He was tall, muscled, and good at his job. Reasonably good. Not as good as Cobb.

Cobb was with his children. It had been close to two years since the Fischer job, and Cobb was just beginning to think about taking easy, close-to-home jobs. _…Maybe._

The team as a whole was new to Arthur. He'd started out as Cobb's point man and never left, so he'd never worked with any other extractor. And true, the architects changed like the seasons (except for that two-year run with Hanson), they didn't always need a forger (but when they did, Arthur would try to avoid working with Eames because his husband was _distracting,_ though Cobb usually hired him anyway), and a chemist wasn't usually necessary (two-level dreams were pretty stable), Arthur had always been on Cobb's team. It felt odd not answering to Cobb, even after two years.

Settling back in his chair, Arthur took a moment to look over the unconscious mark. Richard Morren was CEO and president of International Oil, a very large, very successful business that their client wanted a merger with. He was also a hypochondriac. It had been a piece of cake for Arthur to set up a 'necessary' surgery for the man. He'd walk away with a nice surgical scar and a new idea that would endlessly please the rival businessman that had hired the team.

The PASIV was placed on an empty cart that normally held surgical implements and wheeled into the center of the semi-circle of chairs by a nurse. When the cords came out, Arthur suddenly felt another stab of anxiety. Inceptions were a touchy business, and any number of things could go wrong when you were three levels down. You should never go in without the best.

And that, Arthur knew, was exactly what he was doing now.

'_Why?'_ he wondered, watching the others secure the needles to their wrists. Perhaps it was the thrill, however "unlike Arthur" Eames would have said thrill-seeking was. The thing was, the Fischer job had been terrifying, yes, but it had also been exciting.

People did this for the adrenaline, the beauty of the build, the rush of a job gone well. It wasn't about the money, it was about the love of the job.

The easy extractions that Arthur had been doing details for for the last two years were _nothing._ In, out. No resistance, nothing to get his heart beating faster. Not that Arthur was expecting any sort of trouble from this job. The mark wasn't trained—Arthur had researched that _thoroughly_—so the only real excitement was whether or not the idea would take, whether or not they had done it right. Their client didn't want "no" for an answer.

So Arthur joined the team, learned the details, tested Beecher's sedatives, and felt the whisper of that thrill. He wondered what he would do when three-level inception jobs became boring.

But, he supposed, all of the dangers might be enough to keep him interested for a while. Anything could go unexpectedly wrong under sedation. Enough things that made going in without the best of the best a very bad idea. Arthur had never really thought about that before—too lost in the details—and now he wondered if perhaps it had been time to look at the bigger picture.

The needle slid into his arm.

-ooo-

Five minutes after Arthur called, Eames stepped out of the shower. Pulling on a robe, the forger wandered over to the nightstand where he'd left his phone, convinced he'd heard it ringing earlier. He flipped it open and tried to hide the grin that spread across his face every time Arthur was involved, even though no one was around to see it.

One new message, the voicemail indicator informed him.

…That was odd. Arthur didn't usually leave messages, preferring to leave it up to the 'missed call' indicator to inform his husband that he'd been trying to get a hold of him. As he typed in his voicemail password, Eames struggled to think of a reason that Arthur would leave a message now.

"_Wednesday, September fourteenth. 7:15 a.m.,"_ his message box chirped before it played back his husband's call.

'_September fourteenth,'_ Eames mused, wondering why he felt like he'd forgotten something and trying to ignore the stab of worry he felt as he listened to Arthur's message. It started out normally, and Eames grinned again to hear his first name. Arthur only called him 'James' when he wasn't annoyed with him, which wasn't very often.

"…call you when I'm done." Pause. "I love you."

Eames felt his blood run cold. Quickly, he dialed Arthur's number, only to be granted six rings and_ "Arthur DeLacey, leave a message."_ Next he called Cobb.

_Ring, ring, ri—_

"_Hello?"_

"'Ello, Cobb," Eames said without any introduction. "Is Arthur working with you?"

"_Working? No. We haven't worked together since Fischer. Why?"_

"Because my stupid darling has gotten himself into a right mess. I don't suppose you know where he is?"

"_No, I don't. Why don't you know where he is? Isn't today your anniversary?"_ Cobb sounded slightly bewildered.

Eames paused. "I—yes. Oh bloody Nora, that is today, isn't it. Well, fuck. But that's not what I called for." The forger pinched the bridge of his nose.

"_How do you know he's in trouble, then, if you don't know where he is?"_ Cobb asked, voice slightly muffled as he pulled the phone away from his mouth to shout for his kids not to _touch that._

"He called me." Eames ran a hand through his hair restlessly. "He left a message."

"_I assume that it didn't say where he was. What _did_ it say?"_

Eames could hear worry creeping into Cobb's voice. "That he was working a five-hour-job and that he'd ring me when it was over," he replied.

"_That doesn't sound like anything to wor—"_

"He told me he _loved_ me, Cobb. Arthur was nervous about this one."

Cobb sighed. _"Eames, look. Just because Arthur said that he loves—"_

"I bloody well know my own husband!" Eames shouted, suddenly frustrated. "I know when something's wrong." He took a breath. "So, you have no idea where he is?"

"_No, I—"_

"Then I'll call you when I've found him." Eames hung up.

-ooo-

The first level went well.

They cleared it in just under half an hour in first-level time, with the idea "my company is doing well" being accepted by Morren with no difficulty at all. It was so easy that Arthur almost relaxed. Almost. There were still two levels to go.

Down they went to the second level, leaving Hanson to manage his dream alone. This dream was an office building—Morren's headquarters. Here they would implant "I want my business to do better." It seemed to be taking, since Morren had turned to discuss this with his projection board members after Crystal—now the board's vice-chairman—had brought in charts of the company's progress.

The projections didn't notice a thing, something which soothed Arthur's frayed nerves considerably. They stayed there for _ten hours_, waiting for Morren and his board to decide on something. Arthur was glad that he had never taken an office job. And all that time, the projections never once stared at Arthur. But he didn't relax.

And that didn't seem likely to change, especially when Arthur felt the muzzle of a gun press against the back of his head.

"Keep quiet," Beecher warned. "There's no way you can talk your way out of this." The chemist cocked the hammer back and let out an almost hysterical chuckle. "Do you know how long I've been waiting for this moment? Two years. Two whole fucking _years,_ DeLacey. And having you this close for so long has been killing me. It was fate that we took the same job, you know that?"

"Why are you doing this?" Arthur asked quietly, running through his options in his head. He came back with very few, and all of them bad.

"Why? _Why?_ Jesus Christ, DeLacey."

Arthur could feel the gun tremble against the back of his head.

"_Why?_ Why did you let them take my brother away? Huh? Surely you remember my brother, Nash. You and Cobb worked with him, remember? You screwed him over, DeLacey. So now, now I'm going to screw you over. Go to hell, DeLacey."

Arthur ducked in time to miss the first bullet, and he drove his elbow into Beecher's stomach. Winded, the doctor staggered a step back with the force of the blow. It gave Arthur enough time to pull his own gun, and pivot to face his assailant. He was ready for another shot.

But he wasn't ready for Beecher to tackle him.

The chemist charged at him, completely disregarding Arthur's gun. The point man fired, catching Beecher in the shoulder, before he was plowed over by the doctor's momentum. They struggled, and after a long time Beecher got Arthur's gun away from him. Using his greater mass to his advantage, Beecher kept Arthur pinned beneath him while the chemist bashed Arthur's head against the floor a few times. Then, he stood.

Arthur knew he should move, get up, but the world was spinning too badly. He wondered blearily what exactly Hanson was doing to Howard's body to make the gravity shift so crazily as he stared up at Beecher.

The hammer cocked back. Beecher grinned as he leveled the gun at his forehead. "Enjoy limbo," he said.

And then everything went black.

-ooo-

Arthur washes up on shore. Blearily, he pushes himself up and spits the salt water out of his mouth. There is nothing around, nothing for miles and miles and miles.

His suit is ruined.

Standing up, he tries to make out anything in the distance, but there is nothing, since neither he nor his teammates have ever been to limbo before.

The world is what he makes it, so he imagines a road and follows it away from the sea.

-ooo-

Eames had pulled in all the favors he could to uncover Arthur's last known location. It took a full hour for Eames to find out that his husband was working an inception job with a man named Howard in Newark, New Jersey, just two states down from where Eames was currently holed up.

'_Inception? Really, love? You didn't get enough with Fischer?'_ Eames thought as he left his hotel, heading for the airport. He had already called ahead for a ticket, but the flight and security meant that he would be at least another hour, and that he would be unarmed. He didn't have time to check and explain a suitcase full of guns. _'That's _dangerous_. No wonder you called. Bloody hell, if I'd been there to pick up the phone I would have told you not to—'_

He cut himself off by pulling into the airport garage.

Eames leapt from the car and ran for the stairs, not even bothering to lock it behind him. He got his ticket, passed though security, and boarded the plane, all the time trying to ignore the worry eating a hole through his stomach.

-ooo-

Arthur searches his suit over and over, but he finds nothing. After a month, he leaves his city and follows his road back down to the sea. Every day, he walks down to the water, telling himself that this isn't _real._ "This isn't reality," he says, but he searches his suit pockets again and finds nothing.

After five months he finally convinces himself, levels the gun at his head, and pulls the trigger.

When he wakes, he stands from the water and regards his ruined suit with distaste. He sighs and steps back onto the shore, following the road back into the city.

He comes back every day to stare out at the horizon, waiting for something. After five years there is seaweed in the ocean, mountains of it left kicked up on the shore when the tides recede. After six, there are rocks and shells gleaming wetly against the smooth sand.

He supposes he breaks after ten, because there are suddenly people in the city, people on the beach. People who all have British accents, even thought the coastline is starting to resemble the beach he visited as a child growing up in South Carolina.

'_Projections,'_ he thinks dimly, but he isn't sure.

After fifteen years he is building from memory. There, his childhood home. There, the town hall where he and Eames married. Over there, the house in France they had lived in for a time.

And Arthur stands at the water every day, thinking of nothing and everything and about what's beyond the horizon, letting the water lap over his bare feet or sometimes his leather loafers (ruined now, he notes, sometimes). He stays there until a British man, slightly but gracefully aged, pulls him away and whispers, "Come on, darling. Come home."

-ooo-

Frustratedly, Eames waited for his plane to begin taxiing. Every second he wasted was another second that something could go wrong for Arthur. "Darling," he muttered, "you'd better take care of yourself until I get there."

-ooo-

Twenty years to the day since Arthur had arrived here, he stands ankle-deep in the water and stares down at the red plastic cube tapping gently against his leg. It is somehow familiar to him, so he leans down and lifts it out of the sweeping waves before they can carry it away.

After all of the years it has spent in the ocean, the cube has lost all its painted-on dots, all of the indents worn down until the sides are nothing more than smooth planes of red.

But he knows the weight.

And he remembers…something. The ghost of an idea. The phantom of a silver box and tables covered with page after page of notes and research and blueprints.

"What are you waiting for?"

He looks up from the cube, startled, to see an elderly woman who reminds him of his mother's neighbor, the one that passed away when he was much younger.

"Waiting?" he whispers, glancing out to sea. Then he nods. "Yes, I am waiting for…waiting for…my husband." He rolls the cube on the flat expanse of sand the wave leaves as it slides back and wonders if it lands on a five, like it's supposed to.

He snatches it back up before the water can reclaim it, looking back to the woman to see her smiling.

"Well, here he comes," she says, and Arthur looks over his shoulder to where she is pointing. There, coming down the beach in a horrendously bright button-down short-sleeved shirt and ripped jeans is his husband.

Eames lazily lifts a hand to wave, smiling.

"Yes," Arthur says slowly, tucking the die into his breast pocket. "He here comes now." And the other man arrives, taking Arthur's hand and joining him in the ankle-deep surf. "James," Arthur says, "this is real, isn't it?"

And Eames smiles but says nothing, because a projection cannot tell him what he doesn't already know.

-ooo-

Forty-five minutes into his flight, Eames called Cobb.

"_Hello?"_

"Cobb, I've found Arthur. Tell me, how soon can you be in Newark, New Jersey?" Eames knew it was a long shot, but he needed someone he could trust to watch his back.

"_Newark? The kids and I are visiting family about four towns over. I can be there in half an hour. What's Arthur gotten himself into?"_

Eames sighed in relief. "Thank God. Arthur's working an inception with a man named Howard. Heard of him?"

"_Only by reputation. He's all right, but he has a tendency to hire sketchy people."_

"Sketchy? Lovely." Eames pinched the bridge of his nose. "I'm landing in fifteen minutes. I'll shake down my contacts and see if I can find where they're working out from. I'll call you when I know anything." He could hear Cobb grabbing his coat and bidding a quick "I'll be back soon" to his children in the background.

"_All right,"_ Cobb said, and Eames could hear the door open. _"Oh, and Eames?" _Cobb said, catching the forger just before he hung up. _"Arthur can take care of himself. I'm sure he'll be just fine when we get there."_

"Yeah, I hope," Eames said, and closed his phone.

-ooo-

When Arthur turns sixty-five, thirty-five years after he washed up on shore, he thinks that maybe he is wrong, that this world isn't real. Can't possibly be real. He's asked Eames dozens of times, but the answer varies. "Yes, of course," his husband replies. But then the next time, he just smiles and says nothing.

And Arthur continues to spend his days down by the water, longer and longer spans of hours disappearing into the sea breeze as he waits for something he's forgotten.

-ooo-

Eames was the first one off the plane. It required some rudeness and shoving, but he was off the aircraft in three minutes flat. He followed the airport's signs to the taxi pick up area and grabbed the first one he saw, ordering it to go to Emmett's Pub, a rather seedy bar on North Beach Street.

He threw some money at the driver when they arrived.

Stepping inside, Eames scanned the crowd for his man, finding him at the bar. He sat down next to him.

"Alexander, I need you to tell me all you know about Howard's inception job," he said without preamble.

Alexander took a leisurely sip of his drink and regarded Eames out of the corner of his eye. "Oh? And what's in it for me? John Howard's not a man I would cross for less than five grand."

"I'll give you six if you just tell me where he is," Eames said. Alexander turned to look at him fully, eyebrows raised.

"Will you now?" he asked, surprised. "What's so important that you need to find Howard that badly? …He screw you over, or something?"

"Well, we'll see if he has or not," Eames said simply. "Now, are you going to tell, me?"

Alexander held out his hand.

As he was tucking the bills into his inside pocket, Alexander raised his hand for another drink. "Your boy Howard is working the job out of Mercy General on Fifth, last time I checked. Mark's name's Richard Morren. Howard was here 'bout a month ago, looking for a crew." Alexander whistled. "Though, here is not the place I would go to find a crew for an inception."

Eames waved away the retired point man's muttering. "Did he get anyone you recognized?" Eames asked, hoping to get a better picture of what he was going up against—of who he was trusting Arthur to.

"He picked up a forger—name's Crystal, I think—and an architect named Hanson. When he came back a few days later, he had a strict looking guy in a suit with him, too. He picked up a young guy I didn't know second round, and I think that's all he needed."

"Thank you," Eames said. And ten minutes after he had arrived, he left, pulling out his phone and dialing Cobb's number.

-ooo-

"What are you waiting for?"

Arthur stands on the shore, leaning against Eames with Eames's arm around his shoulder. The sun is setting and it paints the sky red and purple and dyes the still sea.

"Hmm?" he asks, tilting his head up. He is seventy-two, his hair silvered, still wearing neatly pressed suits in contrast to his husband's casual jeans.

"I asked you what you're waiting for, darling." Eames's arm is warm against the wind off the ocean, and Arthur leans closer.

"Who says I'm waiting for anything?" he inquires.

"I know you, love. I know when you're waiting."

And Arthur sighs and thinks about what he could be anticipating. "What am I waiting for, then?" he asks back. "Do you know?"

"For something you forgot," Eames replies, and they stare off into the distance for a long while. And then, suddenly, Eames says, "Do you love me, darling?"

"Of course I do. Yes, I lo—" And Arthur's hand drops to his pocket where the smooth, featureless cube waits patiently. "You know I do."

-ooo-

Eames met Cobb outside of Mercy General five minutes later. While he had been waiting for the retired extractor, Eames had taken the liberty of procuring two white lab coats.

"Just act like you know what you're doing," he said with a tight smile, handing one of the coats over and accepting the gun Cobb offers him. Cobb nodded, and they entered the building.

"So, is it confirmed that he's in trouble?" Cobb asked after Eames had charmed Morren's location out of a passing nurse.

"Not yet, no," Eames said, smiling at an oncoming female doctor. "But I can tell."

Cobb didn't say anything.

-ooo-

Arthur contemplates putting new numbers on the die, one night while he sits with his husband on the porch. Just to give it a purpose again.

It is early February, but the air isn't cold. Arthur wonders about this, but he knows that the winter is usually warmer by the sea. Or maybe they are simply having a warm spell.

"I've forgotten something important," he says to Eames. His husband chuckles.

"Come now, darling. The anniversary isn't for months. And my birthday isn't for another month after that."

"Yes, yes, I know," he says, lightly slapping his husband's shoulder. "That's not what I meant."

In seven months, give or take a few days, it will be September fourteenth, their fifty…second anniversary. It seems so hard for Arthur to grasp, the idea that he's spent fifty-two years happily married to this man. It's ama—

"—zing."

Arthur looks up.

"What?"

"I was just saying that it's amazing. Fifty-two years, can you believe it? That long, and we haven't killed each other yet. Who would have thought, love?"

Arthur smiles back, trying to soothe down the flash of…oddness he feels, hearing Eames say exactly what Arthur himself had just been thinking. It is so unusual that they're on the same page about anything, but he supposes it must have something to do with being together for so long.

He rolls the useless die along the porch's railing.

"So then, darling," Eames says, picking his drink off the tray table next to him, "what exactly is it that you've forgotten?"

"If I remembered it wouldn't be forgotten," Arthur says. "Use your brain." The usual, light tease.

"Alzheimer's," Eames teases back, but there is an odd look on his face. "You _are_ seventy-five, after all, love."

Arthur hits him.

-ooo-

Eames stationed himself outside the operating room, waiting, while Cobb picked a spot further down the hallway where he could monitor both Eames and the intersecting hallways. In jobs like this, there was usually a man left on the outside to make sure nothing went wrong, someone they trusted. He'd have to be dealt with.

Just as they were preparing to rush in, Eames heard a gasp, some floundering, and a shout from inside. Eames glanced at Cobb and then stole a look through the window. One of the men attached to the PASIV was sitting up and pulling the needle out of his arm.

"…must not have been sedated correctly," Eames heard the guard say as he examined the newly conscious man.

"I don't care about that!" the man yelled.

Eames studied him. "He's the tourist," he confirmed softly to himself. "He flails around too much to be a professional." Then, he called back to Cobb quietly, "The tourist's awake. Something went wrong with his sedation." Eames could feel his body tense further. Sedation was really the easiest part of the job. If they'd managed to screw that up…

Cobb nodded. "What else is going on?" His attention was on the connecting hallway, making sure they didn't get any concerned hospital staff coming to see what the commotion was.

"They're arguing," Eames said before holding up his hand to cut off Cobb's next comment. The tourist was saying something else.

"For God's sake! This is not what we wanted. My employer is not going to be very happy about this, let me tell you. Beecher went fucking _psycho!_ He shot DeLacey clean in the forehead, in the _middle of the job!_ You guys are getting paid for_ inception,_ not personal vendettas! If this gets screwed up because of that, you can kiss your paycheck goodbye."

Eames's hand tightened on the gun Cobb had given him. "Cobb, I'm going in. I have to get down to limbo and back before the job finishes."

"Limbo?" Cobb demanded. "Jesus Christ. All right, I'll cover you." He paused. "You want me to come in, too?"

Eames could tell Cobb was hesitant to do it, to go back there. He would do anything for Arthur, but his kids…

"No, it's all right, Cobb. I just need someone to make sure they don't shoot me in the head while I'm on holiday."

Cobb nodded, and they kicked the door open.

"Drop it," Cobb snapped as the guard reached for his gun. The man looked at Cobb, then at Cobb's gun leveled at his head, and tossed his own piece down at the extractor's feet. Eames tucked his borrowed gun into his waistband and headed toward the empty PASIV link-up.

"No!" the tourist screeched. "_No!_ I will not allow this job to be interfered with!" He ran at Eames who easily flipped the man back into the chair he'd stood from. Then he condescendingly patted the man's cheek and watched his face purple with rage.

"Take a breather," he advised, looking for the sedative syringes. He emptied out about half the dosage, and then nodded to Cobb. He took a second—one, brief second—to touch Arthur's face gently. "Happy anniversary, darling. I'm coming." He sat down on the floor, leaning against Arthur's chair, and injected the sedative.

"No!" the tourist shouted again, but no one paid him any mind.

"Don't throw a fit, poppet," Eames admonished as he strapped the PASIV needle to his arm. "I'm not here to ruin your job. I'm just here for my husband."

The needle broke the skin, and he watched the world go dark.

-ooo-

"Happy anniversary, darling. I'm coming," Arthur hears yelled down the stairs. He smiles with fond exasperation as he waits for Eames to finish dressing. He is glad that he told his husband that their dinner reservation is half an hour earlier than it really is. After fifty…two years, he knows the man too well.

"Hurry up! You always complain that I waste too much time putting on my suits in the morning. Maybe you should get more practice in!" He laughs, but finds himself breathless as his husband descends from their bedroom. Even after all of these years, he is still awed by this man, this imperfect, impossible man who he's loved since he met him at age sixteen.

And no matter what his husband is wearing, no matter what he says or does or doesn't do, Arthur still loves Eames just as much as he did when they first shook hands.

"Pet? Are you ready?"

"Hmm?" Arthur asks, shaking himself and turning his eyes to his husband's worried gaze. "Yes? Oh, yes. I'm ready. We're going…to dinner. Yes, I remember. Lead on, then," he says, and Eames takes his hand to bring him to the car.

"Arthur, love," Eames says gently, but Arthur cuts him off with a sad smile.

"I know, James. But it's not a problem. I haven't really started forgetting anything yet. When that happens, we'll start to worry, all right? Right now I just want to go have dinner with you for our fiftieth anniversary. Okay?"

"Fifty-second," Eames corrects, quietly, and tries not to think about the times Arthur has forgotten what day it was or the name of the family that moved in across the road _six years ago_.

He and Arthur go to dinner.

The table is the same one they sit at every year, the same table that they knocked over and hid behind during the firefight when Eames pulled out a ring and dropped it in Arthur's lap while the younger man was ducked down to reload. It is the only table in the restaurant that has bullet holes in it.

The décor hasn't changed much, either.

When the wine comes, Arthur raises his glass to make a toast.

"Here's to fifty…_two_ years of surprisingly successful marriage," he says. "To you, and to my patience, and to the rest of our lives." And Eames nods and raises his own glass, touching the brim of it to his husband's before downing a long, sad swig of it.

After dinner, they leave the restaurant, holding hands. Eames drapes his coat over Arthur's shoulders to ward off the chill of the brisk September air, and Arthur tilts a playful glare at him, but he doesn't push the coat off as he would have forty years ago. Suddenly, he stops at the curb.

"James, I'm sorry," he says.

His husband turns to look up at him from where he stands in the crosswalk. "Sorry about what, love?"

"Everything," Arthur answers quietly. "For what I'm putting you through, for fighting with you, for throwing away that awful pink and lime-green shirt you bought and telling you we left it in the hotel, for sometimes thinking that none of this is real…" He takes a breath. "For never telling you that I lo—"

Eames puts a finger over his husband's lips. "I know, Arthur. But you don't need to apologize about anything. Well, except for the shirt. I loved that one."

"It was hideous," Arthur says shortly. Eames laughs and gently tugs Arthur down from the curb.

"Let's dance," he says, pulling Arthur close as he steps back into the middle of the crosswalk. "Come on."

"Dance?" Arthur asks skeptically. "James, you know I don't dance."

"Of course you do," Eames says encouragingly. "You can do it. I've seen you dance plenty of times before."

Arthur laughs as Eames places Arthur's arms around his neck and wraps his own around Arthur's waist. Eames loves to dance. He dances with anyone, anywhere. But Arthur never dances.

"Yes," he says patiently, "I can dance. I just don't. Not _wanting_ to and not being _able_ to are two very different things."

But nonetheless he lets Eames lead him in a slow turn, even though Arthur is taller.

"Can't dance, won't dance, what's it matter?" Eames asks, and Arthur can see the wrinkles on his face as they step under a streetlight. Most are laugh lines, but there are a few that are emerging from too much worried frowning.

Arthur lays his head against Eames's shoulder and tries to fight down the guilt that is clawing its way up from his heart and making its escape through the tears that are now staining Eames's shoulder.

"It doesn't," he says, voice muffled as he turns his face into Eames's neck. Eames pulls him closer and lays his cheek against his husband's head.

"It doesn't matter," Arthur says again. "Because tonight I dance."

-ooo-

Predictably, he ran into Hanson on the first level almost immediately after he arrived.

At first, Eames carried on like a projection, surreptitiously scanning the hallway as he walked right past Hanson. He reached the most likely door that the PASIV was behind and approached it. Hanson intercepted him with a lie about the room being closed for ceiling work. With a projection, it would have worked.

Eames, however, did not have time to waste trying another way in. It was this door or nothing. So, he kept on towards the door.

"Hey! I said you can't go in there!" Hanson took two steps closer to Eames, and then Eames had him pinned against the wall.

"What the hell?" the architect said, struggling against Eames.

"Calm down, mate," Eames said. "I'm not here to hurt you or your job, I just need to go down to the next level. Now, I'm going to let you up, but you shouldn't—"

Hanson spun out of Eames's grasp and in a second had his gun leveled at the intruder. The forger raised his hands to show that he was unarmed, making no move toward the gun tucked into his waistband. "Who the hell are you?" the architect snapped.

"My name is Eames. I'm a forger."

"What is another forger doing here?" Hanson demanded. "Are from International Oil? Did someone else hire you?" Eames sighed.

"Look, I already told you I'm not here to sabotage your job. I wasn't hired by anyone. I'm here on a personal matter."

Hanson snorted. "Oh really? And what personal matter would that be? It has to be job related, or you would have just offed whoever you're after in reality."

"Yes, I _could_ have, but I'm not here to off anyone," Eames said. "I'm here for Arthur DeLacey."

Hanson shook his head incredulously. "DeLacey? You picked the wrong man to cross, then. DeLacey's tough." The gun didn't move.

"I'm not here to cross him," Eames said. "I'm here to rescue him. He's fallen into limbo, and I need to get him out." He anticipated the question in Hanson's eyes and continued. "Beecher, whoever that is, shot him in the forehead on the second level. Your tourist was improperly sedated and woke up raving about it. That's how I know."

Hanson blinked, like he was trying to wrap his mind around this new information. "Beecher shot—Wait. Why do you care? And why were you there to hear Williams when he woke up?"

"I was there because Arthur called me before the job, and I care because he's my husband." There must have been something in Eames's voice that finally convinced Hanson, because the gun lowered a little. Eames was glad. He hadn't wanted to shoot Hanson, but that was the only other option.

"Fuck," the architect swore, lowering the gun fully after studying Eames's face and finding something truthful, forger or not. "DeLacey was a good man. No one deserves to go by losing there mind in limbo."

"With your cooperation, he still will be a good man. I've been married to that stick-in-the-mud for seven years, and I'll be damned if I lose him now. I need to get down to the second level."

After a long minute, Hanson nodded and stepped aside from the door. "John Howard is a good man, too. An honorable man," he said as he followed Eames into the room and over to the PASIV. "If you start accusing him of deliberately disregarding DeLacey's safety or valuing his paycheck over DeLacey's life he may be more willing to help you."

"Why are you agreeing to this?" Eames had to know, before he went under.

"Because I don't value money over a human life, either," the architect said. "And DeLacey and I worked together for a time with Cobb, back when the kid was just starting out. He was ten years younger than me, and already leaps and bounds above any other point man I'd ever worked with. I want to keep talent like that in circulation."

Eames nodded. "When's the kick coming?" he asked as he strapped the needle to his arm.

"In one minute. That gives you only twenty minutes to convince Howard and get down to level three. Good luck, and bring back DeLacey, all right?"

Eames nodded and slid the needle in.

-ooo-

Arthur has forgotten what day it is. It wouldn't be a problem, if it only happened once, but he has to ask Eames several times. It is September twentieth, his husband tells him, over and over.

And Arthur says thank you and circles the date in red on his calendar so he won't have to ask anymore.

-ooo-

Howard was not hard to find. Eames considered going in through the PASIV room's window, but he had to convince Howard to revive Arthur in time for the kick. The only way to do that would be to talk to the man. So he walked right up to him.

"John Howard?"

The extractor looked up in alarm, hand falling toward his gun.

"Good. My name is Eames. I'm not here to mess with your job. I was not hired by a competitor, and I'm not freelancing. I am here to rescue my husband from limbo. Any questions?"

Howard drew his gun. "If I had any reason at all to believe you, then things would be simpler, wouldn't they?"

Eames's mouth thinned into a line. "Think for a minute. I could have gone in through the window and disguised myself as your missing tourist, but I didn't. I'm only talking to you because I need you to revive Arthur's body when the kick comes."

Howard was beginning to look a little confused, but he was hiding it well. It was true; Eames's actions did not lend themselves to one who was trying to sabotage a job.

"How did you find out about this?" he asked, referring to the whole situation. The gun stayed where it was.

"Your tourist woke up. Check in there if you don't believe me. I was in the area because Arthur called me. He said something that raised flags, so I came to find him."

"He knew Beecher was going to shoot him?" Howard asked incredulously. Eames could tell there was a shift in his stance, a slight openness in his body language.

"He'd better not have," Eames said. "Or I'll bloody well shoot him myself." He took a step toward Howard. "However, if I find out that you knew and sent Arthur in anyway—"

His threat was cut off by the flash of fire in Howard's eyes. "I don't turn on my men," he said. "Not unless they deserve it."

Eames tilted his head in challenge. "And did Arthur deserve it? Does he deserve to rot in limbo for a paycheck? Because you left him there for _money?"_

"It isn't like that!" Howard snapped. "DeLacey knew the risks—"

"Did he?" Eames interrupted. "He didn't know Beecher was a psycho. It's not your fault he turned out to be. But it will be your fault if Arthur wakes up a vegetable with his mind lost forever. I can get him out. All I need you to do is give him a kick when the time comes, with the office A.E.D. All right?"

For a minute, Eames couldn't read anything on Howard. Nothing at all. And then the extractor holstered his gun. "Fine," he snapped. "But if you don't get him back, DeLacey's not on my conscience."

They entered the room together, and Howard's eyes widened when he noticed that their tourist was gone.

"Hanson told me to tell you that you have—" Eames checked his watch "—three minutes until the kick." The forger stepped over to the tourist's vacant chair, trying to ignore Arthur's body laid out on the table next to the PASIV, out of the view of the projections. Instead, he focused his glare on the tied up and bleeding Beecher in the corner of the room.

"Fine," Hanson said. "Listen for the 1812 Overture, and tell Crystal she has an hour. She'd better be done."

"Can do," Eames said, and down he went.

-ooo-

Arthur misses his doctor's appointment because he doesn't remember that today is the twenty-fifth. Eames finds him standing at the shore, rolling his featureless cube in his hand.

"…Darling?" he asks, and his brow furrows slightly as Arthur jolts. The point man turns to look at him over his shoulder.

"James, have we gotten new neighbors?" he asks, turning back to watching the two young girls splashing in the water a few meters down the beach. "I didn't think anyone had moved out."

"No, Arty, darling," Eames says quietly. "That's the Strassen family, remember? They moved in six years ago. Mary and Harold, and their daughters Susie and Samantha. We baked them cookies."

And Arthur narrows his eyes for a moment in thought, and then nods. "Oh yes, how silly of me. I remember them. They've gotten a lot bigger. Maybe I just didn't recognize them."

"Maybe," Eames says, and he wishes he believed it. "Darling, you missed your appointment with Dr. Marning today."

"Hmm? That was today?" Arthur asks, and turns around to face Eames completely. "I must have misplaced my appointments book. I'll set another one up for tomorrow, I guess." He sighs, and a tired, sad smile pulls at the corners of his mouth. "James, I'm sorry. I'll remember this time. I promise."

But Eames has to remind him tomorrow, too.

-ooo-

The third level was actually modeled after the client's company, trying to promote "my business will do better with a merger" in the mark's mind.

Eames found Crystal outside a meeting room where he caught what looked like the tail-end of a business meeting between the mark and his projection of the client. They were talking about terms, and there was a laptop open between them.

They were both smiling.

For the third time today, Eames had a gun leveled at his forehead. But, surprisingly, the gun dropped after only a second.

"Well, well, if it isn't Mr. Eames. Hello, baby."

Eames blinked. "'Ello, ma'am. Have we met?" He studied her, and after a few seconds, her mannerisms clicked into place. She was no longer pretending to be an office lady, so more of her natural tells were showing through.

Well, not everyone can be as good as Eames.

"Have we _met_?" she asked, sounding slightly offended. "Certainly it hasn't been _that_ long. Am I that forgettable?"

"No, of course not. It was the name that threw me, and the fact that you're wearing a secretary," Eames said with a smile. "'Ello, Sarah. How have you been? It's been nearly nine years."

"Nine?" she asked, eyebrow rising. "Really? It doesn't seem like that long. What have you been doing with yourself?"

"Simply what I do best," he answered. "But not today. Today I'm here on a personal matter."

"I was wondering," she agreed. "Not personal in the way that you have a _personal_ interest in not seeing a merger between International Oil and Emerson Inc.?"

"Certainly not," he said. "This is more a matter of my love life."

Her eyes sparkled. "I always knew you'd come around. I've been _saying_ we should give it another shot, Eames. Why are you listening now?" Her eyes narrowed suspiciously, and Eames cursed himself for not remembering offhand how clingy this woman had been when they'd slept together for a few months all those years back.

"I'm not, quite honestly," he said, and she laughed.

"Oh, I know. I just like messing with you. But your reactions are as hard to read as ever." She sighed, and a bit of sadness crept into her eyes. "So, what really brings you here, Eames? Tell me. I don't want to have to shoot you."

"Then don't," Eames answered evenly. "But whether you do or not, the result will be the same. I'm here because I need to get to limbo."

She was watching him closely, but she didn't seem to be listening.

"You know," she said when he was finished, "we were really great together. The greatest pair of forgers in the world. Just think what would happen if we worked together. If we had stayed together."

"Unfortunately, there weren't many jobs that required two forgers, then _or_ now," Eames said. "Now, Sarah, pet, I'm afraid I have to get to limbo."

Sarah made an off-handed gesture. "We should get drinks. My treat."

He thought about accepting, if only for the sake of time, but if he remembered her correctly she was the type to hunt him down and torture him for standing her up. "Not now. And probably not in the future, or at least, not just the two of us. I'm not on the market anymore. …Are you even _listening_ to me?" Eames tried to keep the aggravation out of his voice, because this was a woman who would pounce on any sign of emotion.

She glanced up from her nails and really looked at him for the first time since he'd arrived.

"Off the market?" she asked quietly. Her eyes narrowed, and then she closed them and shook her head. "I see. DeLacey's a lucky man, then. I guess I can see why we never worked out."

"Don't take it personally, dear," Eames said. "In this case, it really _wasn't _you." He glanced toward the PASIV on the small hall table, and her eyes followed the look.

"You could just leave him," she said quietly, and Eames had had enough. Ignoring her, he crossed the hall to the table and opened the PASIV. The familiar click of the gun behind him didn't stop him from pulling out the IV cord.

"Eames, stop," Sarah said softly. "Just stop. It's suicide. Why bother going down there? For DeLacey? There are other…_men_, if that's what you want. For God's sake…"

"Shoot me if you want, Sarah," Eames said, setting the time on the clock. "There are any number of ways I can get to limbo. The PASIV is simply the most preferable."

"How can he mean so much to you?" she asked incredulously, and Eames could hear the tremor in her voice. He hoped she didn't start to cry. Hysterical women were always a problem.

"I've loved him ever since we met," he responds simply. "Sarah, I know this is hard, but I need you to assure me that I'm within the range of your kick."

She sniffed haughtily. "And if you aren't?"

"Then I will spend many happy lives is limbo with my husband," he replied, and turned to meet her eyes. "But I'd prefer to see him alive, in reality."

Sarah's hand spasmed on the gun before she dropped her arm to her side.

"Go," she said shortly. "Get DeLacey. I'll include you in our kick." And her voice was sad, but something in her eyes said she understood.

Eames nodded his thanks, but didn't speak it. Instead he said, "You have half an hour until your kick."

Just as he was about to go under, she stopped him. "Wait. Just answer me this: how long? How long have you two been married?"

"Seven years, going on forever," he replied, and slid the needle into his arm.

-ooo-

"Happy birthday, James," Arthur says with a smile, silently proud that he remembered. He kisses his husband's cheek. "You're…seventy-nine now. Where has the time gone?"

Eames smiles back, taking Arthur's hand. "I don't know, darling. It seems to have flown by."

Arthur laughs and rolls the red cube in his other hand.

"Do you remember our wedding night?" he asks suddenly, panicked that he might have forgotten something so important.

"What?" Eames asks, and sees the look in Arthur's eyes. "No, darling. I don't. I was so drunk at the time, I don't even remember which hotel we were in." He squeezes Arthur's hand comfortingly. "But _bloody hell_ do I wish I did."

Arthur is about to say something when there is a knock at the door. "I'll get it," he says instead, and stands.

It is Mrs. Tamberlain at the door, the daughter of their neighbor. "A man washed up on shore," she says, distress clear on her face. "They think there might have been a boating accident out by the harbor."

"That's horrible," Arthur gasps. "Is he all right? He isn't the only survivor?"

"He seems to be all right, but they're keeping him sedated in case of any internal injury. However, he's asking for you. I can take you to him, if you'd like."

"Did he give his name?" Arthur asks, but he is already accepting his coat from his husband.

"He didn't, no."

"Do you want me to come with you?" Eames asks, and Arthur nods, for fear that when the man wakes up, Arthur will not know him. Together, they follow Mrs. Tamberlain to the hospital.

-ooo-

He wakes up in a white room with an IV attached to his arm. He struggles into consciousness and pulls it out on instinct. He's been fading in and out of the world for what feels like hours, and he wonders if he's been drugged.

There are two people in the room, and they are conversing quietly. He can catch only a snippet of the end.

"—looks like you, James, back when we were young. Don't you think?"

And Eames would recognize that voice anywhere.

"Arty, darling," he mutters from the bed, and one of the men turns to look at him. "Are you all right?"

The forger takes a minute to study the aged face. The hair is silver, and the eyes are lined with wrinkles, but the eyes themselves are heartbreakingly familiar. Behind him, Eames sees what can only be an older version of himself.

"J-James?" Arthur stutters, eyes flicking back and forth between Eames and his aged double. "No, I—this isn't possible. This can't—" He fumbles for the featureless cube in his jacket pocket, and when Eames sees it, his eyes soften.

"Oh, darling. That won't help you much."

And he pulls the lighter off of the side table and flicks it open. The engraved green dragon lets out a quiet roar, and Arthur's eyes follow it as it coils up the expanse of the silver metal case until its head becomes the wick. Eames thumbs the wheel, and the flint strikes.

In reality, the lighter is empty.

Arthur's eyes widen when the dragon breathes out a blue tipped flame, watching burn until Eames shuts the top again.

He lets out a strangled breath.

"Do you—do you remember our wedding night?" he asks, eyes still on the shifting dragon partially hidden by Eames's hand. "Because I don't. But I don't know if that's because I never knew, or because I just…forgot."

Eames leans forward and places his hand gently on Arthur's cheek. "Of course I do, darling. We rented a hotel room in Paris and got so fantastically smashed that you actually sang me a passable rendition of "Sweet Dreams Are Made Of This" and threw up on the carpet."

Arthur closes his eyes.

"Are you ready to go home?" the Brit asks, and Arthur looks back at his projection of his husband. To his surprise, it is smiling.

"Go," it says. "Go on, darling. This isn't real."

And Eames pulls the handgun out of the bedside drawer and takes Arthur's hand.

-ooo-

Arthur opened his eyes blearily. At first, he recognized nothing; everything was an age-muddled blur of colors and shapes that his young mind was trying in vain to sort out.

Then, there were warm hands on him: one on his face and one on his shoulder. The one on his cheek was tapping gently; light slaps to help him back into the world of the conscious. The one on his shoulder was squeezing in a way the betrayed its owner's worry.

"—ling. Arty, darling, can you hear me?"

"James?" he asked after a minute, some of the colors and shapes solidifying into his husband's face. Behind Eames, Arthur could make out the figures of Cobb and Howard in the background. They were talking quietly, but both looked over at the sound of his voice.

"Yes, yes, I'm here, love." The hand on Arthur's shoulder fell to take his hand while the one on his face rubbed soothing circles over his cheekbone. "Are you all right?"

Arthur didn't answer immediately, instead reaching into his pocket for the red die. Its weight was familiar, and the indents on the numbers bit into his hand as he squeezed it. Then, assured of reality, he looked over the crew.

Hanson looked relieved, and Crystal was studying him in a way that made him edgy. Howard looked indifferent, but there was an edge of gladness in his eyes. Beecher was tied to his chair where Cobb had left him, practically foaming at the mouth.

Both the mark and the tourist were long gone.

Arthur opened his mouth. "Is that really what happened on our wedding night?" he asked, surprising himself because that _wasn't what he'd meant to say._ Eames blinked, and Cobb raised an eyebrow.

"Uh…yes?" Eames said. "Yes, that's what happened, love. Well, what I remember at least. The rest is hazy."

Arthur nodded and stood, straightening his tie and relishing in the clarity of his young mind. Why his subconscious had decided he would contract Alzheimer's was a mystery, except for the fact he vaguely knew it ran in his family…

He grabbed Eames's collar and pulled his face close.

"You will not speak of it to _anyone_ else, are we clear?" he said, and Eames grinned.

"Of course, darling, of course." And he wrapped Arthur in a brief hug.

While Arthur was out, it seemed, Cobb, Eames, and Howard had come to a sort of arrangement about what to do with Beecher. In the end, Eames reluctantly left the deranged chemist behind in favor of getting Arthur as far away from this place as possible. There was always time for fun later.

That was, if there was any left of Beecher, later. Howard didn't like people who messed with his job.

-ooo-

Hours later, once Cobb had returned to his children, Eames and Arthur sat together on the roof of the hotel they had checked into. They rested on the wrought-iron bench by the side, Arthur leaning with his back to Eames's chest with Eames's arms protectively curled around him.

"James?" Arthur said quietly, brushing his un-gelled hair off of his forehead. "You know I love you, right?"

Eames wrapped his arms tighter around Arthur's middle and kissed his ear. "Of course I know, love. But now how I am going to know when you're in trouble?"

Arthur let out a soft chuckle and leaned his head back against Eames's shoulder.

"We'll just have to think of something else."

"Fine by me." And Eames grabbed the two champagne flutes off the table beside them. "I know it may not be the most romantic anniversary, but we both forgot. So it's all right."

"Happy anniversary," Arthur said.

"_Fifty-two years, can you believe it?" Eames asks._

"Yes, happy anniversary, darling," Eames said.

And Arthur raised his glass.

"To seven years of the most stress I've ever had in my life," he said with a smile.

"To seven years of nagging and fantastic sex," Eames countered.

"To seven years of fighting."

"And slapping."

"And forgetting birthdays."

"And summers spent on a farm in South Carolina, despite my hay fever."

"To the seven best years of my life," Arthur said quietly.

"Going on forever," Eames started.

"And the rest of our lives," Arthur finished. He downed his champagne and then set the empty flute on the table. Then, he stood and grabbed Eames's hand, tugging him off the bench.

"James, let's dance," he said, and Eames blinked at him bewilderedly.

"Dance?" he asked skeptically. "Arty, you _know_ you don't dance." But he let Arthur pull him forward with little resistance, laying his hands on his husband's waist to take the lead, never mind that Arthur was taller.

"Does it matter?" Arthur asked quietly, laying his forehead on Eames's shoulder.

"No, it doesn't," Eames replied softly.

And that night they danced to the music only they could hear, outlined against the glowing city below.

* * *

Thanks for reading! I hope you liked it. Yeah, I know it was ridiculously sappy at the end, but hey. :) Please review!


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